Source: David McNew / Getty
Porn star Ron Jeremy may be facing rape charges, but his trial just took an unexpected turn.
A Los Angeles judge declared on Tuesday that Jeremy is mentally incompetent and unable to stand trial for the dozens of rape and sexual assault charges he’s facing. Jeremy is said to have severe dementia, and in a recent hearing, Superior Court Judge Ronald S. Harris determined that after reviewing a report from prosecutors and the defense, Jeremy is in “incurable neurocognitive decline” with little chance of recovery.
The 69-year-old has been jailed since he was arrested in 2020 and charged with 34 counts of sexual assault, including 12 counts of rape.
“When he was arrested two years ago I said he would be found innocent of all charges,” Jeremy’s attorney Stuart Goldfarb said in an email to the Miami Herald. “Two years have passed and with the additional discovery I received I believed he would have been found innocent. It is unfortunate due to his mental condition he will not go to trial and have the opportunity to clear his name.”
Prosecutors hope to routinely evaluate Jeremy’s mental state, with the next hearing determining if he’s placed in a state hospital.
The Associated Press obtained court filings that say Jeremy leveraged his celebrity status to assault women for years. Several women shared similar stories of meeting him at Rainbow Bar & Grill on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood, where he’d offer to show them the kitchen or an after-hours bathroom but ended up blocking them into small spaces to rape or sexually assault them.
He’d even ask some of them to describe their experience on a napkin in an attempt to absolve himself of a crime and claim it was consensual.
If found guilty of more than 30 counts of rape and sexual assault, he could be sentenced to 300 years in prison.
